The art of not being one with the universe

My left middle fingertip isn’t very numb any more, which is good. My sides are still tender and sore, and now have visible red splotches. It feels similar to being sunburnt light lobster, but without the peeling skin. I think they’re frostbites.

I went skiing last Sunday. Not a terribly long trip, just up Longyeardalen and Larsbreeen, over to Sarkofagen and down Sukkertoppen. It got a lot colder on Larsbreen, so I put on more clothes and then everything felt dandy until after Sarkofagen (great view, but it wasn’t possible to go as far out towards the tip as i thought, due to the ridge crumbling into car-sized blocks separated by large gaps, with steep stony slopes on either side down to the first cliffs), when it got a bit nippy, and I didn’t have any more clothes to put on. So I revised the route, cut out Trollsteinen, and headed for Sukkertoppen, which was in the direction of home.

Navigating on the plateau can probably be tricky in bad weather, since the terrain has no good landmarks towards Sukkertoppen other than the background mountains, and there are cliffs on either side of the plateau-bridge I was aiming for. But the setting sunshine let me see far, so the GPS didn’t have to save me.

Going down from Sukkertoppen things got cold again, since it’s too steep that I dare ski down it, and tricky to walk down without crampons. I had crampons, and struggled a lot to get them on, which meant that my hands got very cold. Once I got them on, I carried my skis as I walked down the mountainside. Easily at first, then somewhat harder as the crampons fell off and I didn’t want to take my mittens off again to struggle more with them. Then as I climbed down, I noticed that two of my mittened fingertips, pressing against the metal ski poles, were numb. Neither painful nor good, and i was getting chilly at this point. When I got down and walked the last few hundred meters home I took a hot shower, and noticed how cold my sides were, and the amount of ice inside my shell jacket. Going up had been cold but sweaty, going down had just been cold. My heavy backpack was probably partly to blame, squeezing my downsweater so that it didn’t insulate properly.

Moral brought you you by Flipper and Lassie of Int’l Annoying Animals: The fingertips I could feel happening, so that was a surprise.

My left middle fingertip isn't very numb any more, which is good. My sides are still tender and sore, and now have visible red splotches. It feels similar to being sunburnt light lobster, but without the peeling skin. I think they're frostbites. I went skiing last Sunday. Not a terribly long trip, just up Longyeardalen ...